#vg: dav

[hanalghilan]

THE DREADWOLF Dragon Age: The Veilguard (dev. BioWare. 2024)

[warden-commander-of-ferelden]

NEVE GALLUS

ICE MAGE PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR

[heliomanteia]

Kind of adding on to my previous analysis bit about Davrin's arc, but I'm gonna say I'm concerned about media literacy within the DA fandom if Davrin's arc was hard to comprehend for people.

A little rant-like so I'm putting this under the cut:

VG has a strong and consistent narration that is mirrored or reflected within each companion's quest line: it's all about the bigger picture of personal choices and regrets and change and the inevitability of alteration and the need to live with the consequences — it is also somewhat about mortality and carpe diem. Pretty much every companion's line has something to do with death, coping, trauma, fear, and a big and important personal choice that would alter them as a person — it's always a "neither is better" choice and it calls upon your personal judgement to be made. There's room for criticizing the necessity of the black-and-white nature of some choices (i.e. Taash's culture question, for example) but overall they all have a consistent and equally important narrative line.

Claims that Davrin's arc is about Assan are actually hilarious. I assume people saying that have never in their life encountered a story where the main character had an animal companion, or just less sentient companion, that reflected their personality or some of their inner conflict. You know, the staple Disney/fantasy trope. This is an incredibly common narrative tool, it's bizarre to me that people saw that Assan has a lot of screen time and immediately assumed it's no longer about Davrin just because of that. I guess I could say it's not particularly shocking to me that DA fandom of all places had an issue of keeping their focus on a Black man's story. Moving on.

As for the claims that Davrin's arc is about Isseya, I'm a little shocked that was even a talking point. Because just as "animal companion reflecting the character's struggle" is a narrative tool that's up there among the ten most frequently used in media, "antagonist that reflects the main character's pathway in an inverted, perverted manner" is just as frequently applied. In fact, it's concerning that people missed Davrin vs. Isseya mirroring in the game based around the concept of recognition through the other and mirrors of self (Solas vs. Rook). I think it's safe to say that if someone did not catch anything about Davrin's arc and how it's entirely about him, I don't trust their general opinion on DATV overall. Because they're fucking stupid/didn't pay attention.

I don't think it's any surprise that at certain points VG gets a little too exposition-heavy, because apparently just giving people a good storyline with consistent and repetitive narrative that breaches the same narrative points but reflects it differently depending on the character it's about is not enough? Some people will be given the most direct mirror narration there could be without spoon-feeding it and they will still miss the whole fucking point? I'm not shocked that a large bit of "criticism" on VG writing/narrative/what was kept and what was omitted from being mentioned has been genuinely shit. And has consistently offered "fixtures" that would just make the stable narrative of VG a mess without a main theme.

Anyways, Davrin's storyline is very directly about him in every aspect mentioned; every person within his story reflects back on him and fleshes him out.

[magefeathers]

idk if this has been posted anywhere yet, but I wondered how the Crows would react if a Crow Rook saved Minrathous instead of Treviso, and it was as bad as I thought 🥲 so I figured I'd upload it for anyone else who was curious and didn't want to do it themselves

[mohntilyet]

let me be clear i like veilguard but it does suck that no one disapproves anymore outside of like. three choices. i want to be fighting for my life earning approval back again someone has GOT to hate my ass. i should be careful about party composition and companion reactions again. i miss tactically taking fenris out of the party before i'm nice to merrill like those were the days

[hellamorte]

☠️🐦‍⬛ alvdis “rook” ingellvar

[galedekarios]

for @polygone-moi who wanted to see them both in warden blue 💙

leander is looking at davrin off-screen who is just tired of him at this point like

[breaking-circles]

I'm near the end now and I will say, holy shit this choice between Davrin and Harding is so unbalanced its bizarre

Harding: Only known living dwarf w stone powers. Fan favorite from Inquisition. Lots of open questions about what her abilities mean for the Dwarves going forward. If Rook hasn't romanced either, can be in a relationship with Taash. Been with you since the very beginning.

Davrin: A gray warden (going to be mostly obsolete once the last of the archdemons are killed. Drastically shortened lifespan anyways) who has already exhibited willingness to die in battle for the cause (killing the archdemon) and expressed aimlessness at not actually dying. Has trained for years to specifically deal with darkspawn. Whole story arc was about protecting the griffons, which has been neatly wrapped up. Not in a relationship with any other companions if Rook didn't romance him.

(I'm not even going to touch on the race/ism factor here bc that's not my lane but it certainly isn't helping)

From a narrative angle it makes so much more sense to send Davrin. The only thing that makes Harding seem like the right choice is that she's quicker, being a scout.

Am I missing something? This feels like Minrathous v Treviso all over again

[hezenkossapologist]

[lavelans]

i think i’ve figured out what was missing for me in veilguard that made me feel a little empty inside: opportunity to rp and companion approval/disapproval actually mattering

what i miss that we didn’t get in veilguard was that in dai companions would ask you your opinions on things. cassandra would ask you about your beliefs, varric would ask where your head’s at at the moment, solas would ask what you would do in certain situations (a few examples among many others).

it really helped not only with rp, it also shed light on what matters to these characters. you may disagree with each other but that gives some flavor or context to your interactions with them. like my lavellan not believing in the maker and (iirc) in one of her positive approval conversations cassandra mentions that despite your differing beliefs she has grown to respect you and view you as a good friend

just sad that veilguard has so little of that. ig they would handwave it as “they’re on a mission to save the world they have to get along w rook and each other” but like have yall not had coworkers you don’t agree or get along with. but yall still have work to do so you stay on, but that doesn’t change the fact that you hate that coworker’s guts? idk man they could have done something like that.

and you can see that the companions do have fleshed out relationships with each other, both positive and negative! (see: bellara and emmrich, lucanis and davrin) and you see them progress over time (lucanis/davrin getting along in the end, emmrich/taash finding new topics of conversation). kind of sad that they couldn’t give rook that much depth with their relationships too

[kirkwallguy]

the mental gymnastics i've done for why mary gives a shit about solas is she's literally just projecting... she's sooo angry at everyone in the inquisition for letting everything happen to her. wanting to kill solas is just kind of the only way she can rationalise / express this.

[hanalghilan]

worldender worldender

Dragon Age: The Veilguard (dev. Bioware)

[gildergreens]

Prototype of Rook in character creator demo, she's my elven Veil Jumper.

[lucaanis]

im actually soooo sick in the head about replaying da2 soon....... red!hawke rogue/warrior wrendell is going to go so fucking hard im actually excited

[bjornkram]

just finished dragon age veilguard and i am sobbing

bt now i get to go into the tag and reblog gay shit without being spoiled

[mohntilyet]

ALSO ACTUALLY it’s quite fun that rook parallels the chess piece since they come into play right at the end of the match and are typically a very important piece because how you use them ends up deciding the outcome of the game